In a drastic, surprisingly smooth departure from his typical work directing major studio comedies, Adam McKay tackles the dense subject matter of The Big Short, a screen adaptation of Michael Lewis‘ best-selling book about the devastating financial collapse of the mid-aughts. A heavy drama boasting an all-star ensemble (including Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, and more) playing men who watch the world burn to ashes around them from a credit and housing disaster only they saw coming, the film operates in a dark world of complex real estate jargon and impending Wall Street doom. Nevertheless, the film is imbued with a crackling, unpredictable energy a filmmaker with McKay’s comedic and improvisational background naturally brings to the table.

We spoke to McKay in a roundtable interview about the film, which opens this Friday in select cities and expands wide on December 23rd.

As a filmmaker, how hard or easy was it to maintain the balance of making sure your audience understands all of the Wall Street terminology while also being entertaining?
I think what we did with breaking the fourth wall was inspired by Lewis’ book. If you look at his book, he does a lot of footnotes where he says, “You’re still keeping up with what I’m saying. You deserve a gold star.” He kind of talks to the reader a little bit. That inspired us doing that in the movie. I just felt like the movies had to be inclusive. One of the ways the banks get away with ripping us off is by making us feel stupid or bored by financial talk. I wanted to open it up in a fun way because, once you get it, it’s a really energetic, exciting world. I figure if a college dropout who directed Step Brothers can understand it, the rest of the audience can. That was my operating premise. This isn’t that hard—it’s just moving dead money around and giving it weird names.

The balance is a different question. Ultimately I felt like this movie had to be driven by those characters. That’s what drove me through the book—Dr. Michael Burry, Mark Baum, Jared Vennett, the young guys. That’s the meat of this story. They’re us. They’re the people that the rest of the banking world doesn’t respect—they’re obnoxious, they’re weird. There’s also the big question of why they saw [the crisis] when no one else saw it. In the edit room, that was a big thing we looked at, balancing, trying to get the audience to have enough information so that you can go for the ride. But sometimes I’d have to stop the movie and go, “What the fuck is a synthetic CDO?” For the most part, the audiences really love it and feel like it pulls them into the movie more. The only people who have been bitching about it have been super stodgy film formalists.

You come from a theater/improv background where addressing the audience is quite common. Why do you think it’s considered such a radical idea in movies?
There’s definitely a snobbery about it that I’ve noticed. It’s a film school thing. In film school they teach you “show, don’t tell.” They literally do exercises with it. Friends of mine who were in film school talk about how you’d get in trouble if you’d tell and not show. I think it’s become this sort of unspoken rule. But some of my favorite movies of all time involve breaking the fourth wall or using narrators, like 24 Hour Party People. That’s a movie that I love. There’s such an energy to it. American Splendor. Scorsese’s done a bunch—Goodfellas, Casino. You freeze the frame, you talk. That new show, Narcos, does it a lot. I think it’s kind of changing. Early on, there was a power to film in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s where they’re showing. They’re showing a lot. I think now, because there are so many mediums going on, we can blur it a little more. I’m less precious about it. I find it really exciting to [break the fourth wall].

You worked with four A-list actors on this movie. How much direction does each of them require, and are there different techniques you have to use with each of them?
You kind of dial into each actor and what they need. In the case of Bale, he comes to set and he is the character by the time he arrives. But he’s sort of internalized all of the guy’s physical tics and emotional outlook, but we’re trying to find the right pace for it and how much [he] lets out. Do you want to see a full tour de force of what the guy is in every scene? He and I worked a lot on when to use different aspects of the character. We were constantly having a discussion about that. Occasionally, the real Michael Burry’s voice will just get loud for no reason when he’s talking to you, so we talked about when to use that. It’s a constant checking-in with Christian. He’s completely grounded in the guy, but you try to find the right times and places and make sure it feels real.

Carell is very different. Carell almost hunts down the truthful moment like he’s got a pack of dogs. When he doesn’t have it, he gets very pissed at himself. He’s just chasing it and chasing it. When I do comedies with him, it’s not like that, but with this I realized my job was to be like his hunt-master. The two of us would just chase it down. You’re just nudging it and pushing it. When you get there, it’s very cool because he’ll never say “we got it,” but then suddenly, he’s silent. I’ll say “we got it,” and he won’t say anything and we’ll move on. He’s really, really hard on himself in a great way.

Gosling had an odd role in this movie. He’s both inside the movie and outside the movie. He can talk to the camera. So he was closer to a writer-director. The way we’d talk was closer to the way Will Ferrell and I talk. He’s a super collaborative, funny guy. Brad Pitt just came in with this fully formed character. He had the hair, the beard, the look. He knew exactly who this guy is. I was like, “Hey, I want to do this scene in the kitchen.” He was like, “Yup. I want to talk about saving seeds in Monsanto.” Melissa Leo lands, gets off the plane, smokes the scene in fourteen takes, says goodbye, gets on the plane and leaves. It’s like, “Where did that come from?!”

Coming from the world of making really big studio comedies, how easy or difficult was it to pitch yourself to take on a very different project?
You’re one hundred percent right. I’ve tried to make other movies. I tried to make Garth Ennis’ The Boys at one point, and I couldn’t get anyone to make it. That was a case where I went to all the studios in town and I could feel when I was pitching it [them thinking,] “Oh, he’s a comedy guy.” It was a tricky, ambitious project, but it didn’t help that I was a comedy guy in their eyes. In this case, I got very, very lucky. The company that I went to, Plan B, are the coolest people in the world. Really open-minded. The second I pitched my take they were like, “Why didn’t we think of this? This is perfect.” They were one hundred percent behind me from the beginning. And at that point, you have to put up or shut up about the script. When Paramount got the script, they actually liked it. Then we got this incredible cast, so we were good to go. I give all the credit in the world to Plan B for being open enough to talk to me about this. Not only open, but excited to talk about it.

How deeply involved were you with Michael Lewis in translating his book to screen?
Basically, I had lunch with him before we were going to get going. He said to me, “The book was my baby. You take the baby to college now.” He really loved the script. The greatest moment was when he saw our third-to-last screening and just went on and on about it and effusively loved it. Of course, we all reacted like giant geeks!

As a moviegoer, Steve Carell continues to surprise me as his career goes on. He’s always revealing new layers to his gifts. You’ve known him for years—has he always had these dimensions to him or is he really evolving with every project?
I think he’s definitely evolving. He’s got a little bit of Peter Sellers to him in the sense that he’s very meticulous and mathematical in the way he goes about comedy. It’s all very small, precise choices. I always knew he was a very detailed technician. But I don’t think I started thinking, “Oh, wait a minute—he can play these other ranges!” until Little Miss Sunshine. He was pretty frickin’ good in that, but then I thought, “Alright, he’s a good actor, but I’ve always known he was a good actor.” But then he did The Way Way Back. That was the first time I thought, holy shit—this guy’s really good. There’s this anger there and all these emotions. And then, of course, Foxcatcher blew me away. That’s how I ended up casting him in this role. I thought, son of a bitch, I think he can do this. He’s got the anger, he can transform enough. I was knocked over by what he does in this [movie].

What’s it like not working with Will Ferrell?
I can say this: Life is twenty percent less enjoyable. He came and visited us for, like, three or four days on set just because he wanted to hang. We had the best time with him. I always miss him. He’s the best! But I think it was good that we did something separate, you know? I actually was talking to him about doing a cameo, and he was like, “McKay, go do one without me!”

Talk about the pressure cooker of working with Paul Rudd on Ant-Man to craft what that movie became.
I gotta tell you—it didn’t feel like a pressure cooker. It felt like I was in heaven. I grew up on Marvel comics. I met with Kevin Feige and I could tell, “This guy gets it.” Sometimes you meet with these executives and it’s like, “They kind of get it…” The bummer of that is when you write something really cool and they don’t get it. It was so much fun knowing that, if we wrote something cool, Feige was going to get excited about it. We just had the best time, man. It was Rudd and I holed up in a room for two straight months, writing giant action sequences. Everyone assumed I was just doing the comedy, but we rewrote huge parts of that movie. [We got to write] the whole Falcon fight at the Avengers [base]. It was so much fun. I told Feige afterwards, “Any time you need me, give me a call. That was a blast.”

Writer turned director Mark Webber is only 34 years old, his wife of a few months, Teresa Palmer, is 28. Incredibly young and newlywed for the level of drama they face in Webber’s latest directorial endeavor which involves him playing a photographer, Thomas, and Palmer playing his young actress wife, Ava. Blurring reality’s lines further Ava takes credit for Palmer’s real life films, and the fictional couple have a daughter, albeit older than the baby Webber and Palmer just had together in February. The realistic parallels make one wonder why on earth Webber and Palmer would want to imagine a false future for themselves as bleak as the one they paint in The Ever After. The film follows the young married couple as they face an early marriage slump, doubting each other’s feelings and trading sex for real conversations. The restless Thomas heads off to New York for a photography gig where he walks further down the path of infidelity only to find himself paying an intensely high price for his mistakes. Back in LA, Ava meets a hippy woman (Melissa Leo) who invites her to stitch and bitch in her storefront and starts to force her to address some of her issues, though the inner analysis ends up revealing a deeper problem than just a lukewarm marriage.

Perhaps Webber and Palmer were thirsty for challenging roles and decided the best way to do it would be to write their own. And indeed they’ve given themselves the sort of complicated content even older actors would shy away from. Palmer has an enthralling and expressive face, with exacting control of her emotions. In any given scene she fluctuates between five different moods and has mastered her tear ducts into working overtime for her. She’s inspiring to watch. Webber is equally masterful, having written for himself some truly gritty and horrifying content, and while it’s questionable why he felt it necessary to go quite so far it shows courage and commitment to his craft. I hope (for their sakes) the parallels between Thomas and Ava and Webber and Palmer is mostly confined to their reflections on the narcissism of their industries. The dark picture Webber has painted, while stirring and both beautifully felt and heard (Moby and Daniel Ahearn have put together a great soundtrack), makes for a sometimes difficult watch. The ending is a bit simplistic, boiling down all that heavy content into an easier to swallow broth so no one leaves the theater with suicidal thoughts. The film is sure to evoke mixed impressions, but one that carries across firmly is that this is a film made by immensely talented people.

Denis Villeneuve, the French-Canadian director of Polytechnique and Incendies, has seemingly hit the jackpot with his English language debut. Teaming up with a cast of terrific actors along with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, Prisoners sadly spends most of its time letting the incredibly talented people behind it build a hollow shell of a film. The mentions of spirituality, faith, and morally grey situations are laid out but never explored beyond the surface. Thankfully, with people like Villeneuve and Deakins at the helm, the technical mastery makes up for plenty lost in the lackluster screenwriting.

The film starts on Thanksgiving with two neighbouring families, the Dovers and the Birches, visiting each other for dinner. It’s only until well after the dinner that both families realize their youngest daughters, Anna and Joy, are nowhere to be found. Their concern eventually turns to panic as they realize someone took their children. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) leads the investigation into finding the missing girls, while the two sets of parents grieve in their own ways. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is furious at the police for being ineffective, while his wife Grace (Maria Bello) constantly takes pills to stop herself from going into hysterics. Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) simply co-operate and hope for the best.

The only suspect in the case at this point, the driver of an old RV the kids played around with before disappearing (played terrifically by Paul Dano), is mentally impaired to the point where it would be impossible for him to have successfully kidnapped two children. The police let him go, but Keller is convinced of the man’s guilt and kidnaps him. At this point the narrative cuts back and forth between Keller’s torturing of Dano for information and Loki’s attempts to solve the case through more traditional means.

The moral issues that come with Dover’s actions are touched upon only when Franklin and Nancy get roped into helping him. Keller never shows any sense of guilt for what he’s doing, but Howard and Davis do excellent work showing how their characters feel like there are no other options but helping Dover out. Most of the cast ends up doing the leg work for their characters, as writer Aaron Guzikowski mostly boils them down to one or two traits (Keller’s a doomsday prepper, Loki is the classic determined detective, Franklin plays the trumpet). Davis and Bello get the worst material to work with, as Nancy amounts to nothing more than a blank slate and Bello is reduced to frequently wailing. With characters defined so broadly it’s hard for the film’s themes to resonate.

Luckily there is a much better film within Prisoners, and it comes out when the focus turns back to a standard thriller instead of shallow introspection. Villeneuve creates plenty of tension, especially in the film’s dark final act, and Deakins is on top form as always. There are plenty of things going on stylistically, like the way Villeneuve plays with the violation of space throughout the film, however, it’s one of the only interesting things going on for the first two-thirds. Prisoners can be quite good when it chooses to be a regular thriller. Unfortunately it decides to try for more, and comes up short in doing so.

Prisoners trailer:

With Academy Award winning Melissa Leo as the lead, Francine is a day in the life of a middle-aged woman who is struggling to make the adjustment from a long prison sentence to the freedoms of normal society. A lot can be said without the use of dialog and Francine mostly abides by that. This indie film believes that less is more.

This is what we do know, Francine (Melissa Leo) has just been released from prison and because the warden says, “It’s going to be quite an adjustment” you can assume it was a long sentence.  This is confirmed when she gets a drivers license when the clerk tells her to put down her previous address.  The next scene she is getting a tour of a pet store where she will be a self-stocker. She has barely spoken a word and for the most part only nods her head to communicate.  What we do not know is for what reason did she spend in so long in prison for.

On a bus ride home from work we see her take supplies from the pet store so there is possibility it could be from theft. It is not long for the management to realize that she is not a good fit for the store. The middle-aged woman is very soft spoken, barely makes eye contact, and because she is still adjusting to society outside prison walls her personality is not visible. Before long she is let go. However, as she is leaving the job for good she sneaks out a puppy to take home.

The only time she seems comfortable is when she is around animals. Her next job is at a horse stable which lasts about as long as the pet store job and eventually she is working at a veterinarian. Maybe it is because she knows that the animals do not expect her to have conversations with them. Maybe it is because animals will love you without judgment, something she is not used to. Whatever the reason may be, Francine literally surrounds her life with animals at work as well as at home.

Francine starts going to a local church where she meets a man named Ned who is celebrating his one year of sobriety. He lost his wife, son and his job that he had for 18 years. Just as the two begin to hang out with each other outside of church he goes in for a kiss and Francine rejects him. The film focuses on the rejection for quite a while to emphasize the impact it had on both of them.

You can tell that Brian Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky have previously made documentaries because Francine feels like one. It follows Francine around while she does everyday activities. The shots are often choppy and camera is not steady. There was not much of a score or background music either. The idea is to make it seem more realistic and it works.

Francine shows Melissa Leo like you have rarely seen her before. It is a challenging role because it required so little lines of actual dialog even though she spends nearly the entire time in front of the camera. We never find out what makes her tick since we are shielded from what she is actually thinking. On one hand that is what makes her character so intriguing but on the other it makes it frustrating.

It is a slow moving film that provides little hope that one can ever fully transition back to a normal life after prison. It is almost hard to call Francine a character study, even though that is what it is, because we find out so little about the main character. It is those reasons that the film feels so unsettling. The film never intends to answer the questions it brings up which may disappoint some.

The King’s Speech took top honors with Best Picture at the 83rd Academy Awards Sunday night, along with Tom Hooper for Best Director and Colin Firth for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay for that film. Natalie Portman got a well deserved Best Actress win for her role in Black Swan. Christian Bale received Best Supporting Actor and Melissa Leo won Best Supporting Actress both from the film The Fighter. Inception won most of the “tech” awards as it was predicted to do.

See the full list of nominations

The King’s Speech

Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

Christian Bale, The Fighter

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

David Seidler, The King’s Speech

Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

In A Better World

Toy Story 3

Inception

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland

“We Belong Together”, Toy Story 3

The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Inside Job

The Social Network

The Wolfman

Inception

Inception

Inception

Strangers No More

The Lost Thing

God of Love

David O. Russell’s The Fighter is based on a true story about the boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). Micky involves his entire family around his boxing career; using his half-brother Dicky (Christian Bale) as his trainer, his mother Alice (Melissa Leo) as his manager and his seven sisters act as sort of his cheerleader squad.

The Fighter begins in 1993 in Lowell, Massachusetts as an HBO documentary crew is there to film the older brother Dicky. The crew follows him around the streets and his daily interactions with the locals. Dicky believes the documentary crew is capturing his comeback into boxing as he once had a successful but short career himself. The highlight of his career, and quite possibly his life, is that he knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard. A fact that you will not forget as he will remind you at any chance he gets, although many people speculate that Sugar Ray Leonard tripped.

But the real reason behind the documentary is not to showcase his comeback but instead a look on how a one-time boxing hero is now a cocaine addict and criminal. Because Dicky spends most of his time getting high he is often late to training, still you can tell that he is very passionate about boxing and wants to see his brother succeed.

Up to this point, Micky is just considered a “stepping stone” of a fighter, one favored fighters use for as an easy win to climb the ranks. Although he has the talent to be a greater fighter, his dysfunctional family may be getting in the way. Micky credits everything he knows about boxing to his brother Dicky, whom he greatly idolizes even with his setbacks.

Micky’s new girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams) confirms his suspicion of his family hindering his chances to advance his career into something he can be proud of. Micky is obviously torn between his family and his desire to win a championship belt and Charlene is there to guide him along.

The opportunity to train in Vegas is given to Micky under the condition that he leaves his mother and brother behind. Charlene sort of pushes him to accept the offer as it would eventually lead him to a championship fight. Alice was never very accepting of Charlene’s new role in Micky’s life but more so as a mother than a manager. Alice thinks Charlene is trying to control Micky rather than seeing she is actually trying to help.

Still, Alice and Dicky follow them down to Vegas where Micky is ultimately forced to decide between his new crew including his girlfriend Charlene or his family. Micky breaks down and tells his family his is about him and his shot at winning the championship, he wants to decide how things will be ran. Doing so may result in losing his girlfriend, loyalty to his family or not winning the championship. It’s a tough fight for him already and he is not even in the ring yet.

The scene that stood out to me the most was when Dicky watches the documentary made about him, all excited for it only to realize it is about his addiction instead of his career. It not only embarrassed him but acted as a wake-up call for him, a blessing in disguise. Given the opportunity to go back to his old lifestyle when he runs into his old coke addict friends, he declines. That had more of an impact on me than any other part of the film.

Christian Bale might as well be working on this acceptance speech as he is a clear choice for Best Supporting Male at this year’s Oscars. He shows off his amazing talent portraying the cocky, twitchy and passionate ex-boxer now trainer. His dedication for the role is visually shown as he lost a significant amount of weight, repeating what he did before in The Machinist (then he was then forced to put it all back on for his role as Batman). Bale easily steals the film and is what makes it amazing.

It is hard to judge Mark Wahlberg’s performance because he, for the most part, stays out of the way. But he does this on purpose as the story is more focused on his brother Dicky. Micky is not supposed to have a huge personality but instead just be determined to win. Wahlberg was definitely physically built for the role and the fighting scenes looked real.

On the surface, The Fighter is just another boxing film that we have seen before in Raging Bull, Rocky and Million Dollar Baby, but somehow it stays relevant and memorable. The story is enjoyable but the acting is what makes this film so great. It does not get much better than Bale as far acting goes and Wahlberg, Adams and Leo follow his lead with solid performances as well.

Ricky Gervais hosted the 68th Golden Globe Awards this year. Even though The King’s Speech had the most nominations with seven, it was rather unsurprising that The Social Network ended up with the most of the film awards that included; Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Original Score. I was very happy to see Natalie Portman won Best Actress in Motion Picture Drama, it was very well deserved. Glee had the most awards for TV with three total wins. I was happy to see Jim Parsons win Best Actor in a TV comedy or musical. Not only do I enjoy The Big Bang Theory but it was nice to see someone in a comedy or musical get some respect other than Glee. Here is the full list of winners:

FILM

Best Motion Picture – Drama:
The Social Network

Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical:
The Kids Are All Right

Best Director:
David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Actress – Drama:
Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Actor – Drama:
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Best Actress – Comedy or Musical:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Best Actor – Comedy or Musical:
Paul Giamatti, Barney’s Version

Best Supporting Actress:
Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Foreign Language Film:
In A Better World

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture:
Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Best Original Score – Motion Picture:
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network

Best Animated Feature Film:
Toy Story 3

Best Original Song – Motion Picture:
“You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me”, Burlesque

Cecil B. DeMille Award:
Robert De Niro

TV

Best Drama Series:
Boardwalk Empire

Best Comedy Or Musical:
Glee

Best TV Movie/Miniseries:
Carlos

Best Actress – Drama:
Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy

Best Actor – Drama:
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire

Best Actress – Comedy or Musical:
Laura Linney, The Big C

Best Actor – Comedy or Musical:
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

Best Actress – TV Movie/Miniseries:
Claire Danes, Temple Grandin

Best Actor – TV Movie/Miniseries:
Al Pacino, You Don’t Know Jack

Best Supporting Actress – TV Series:
Jane Lynch, Glee

Best Supporting Actor – TV Series:
Chris Colfer, Glee